{"id":281324,"date":"2026-02-05T02:14:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T02:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/281324\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T02:14:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T02:14:07","slug":"son-of-norways-crown-princess-says-he-was-heavily-medicated-as-he-denies-rape-charges-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/281324\/","title":{"rendered":"Son of Norway\u2019s crown princess says he was \u2018heavily medicated\u2019 as he denies rape charges \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marius Borg H\u00f8iby, son of Norway<\/a>\u2019s crown princess, confessed on Wednesday that he has spent much of his adult life \u201cpretty heavily medicated\u201d to cope with the pressures of living in the public eye.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old broke down in tears as he began testimony on day two of his trial in Oslo, facing 38 charges including four counts of rape, which he denies.<\/p>\n

He has already pleaded guilty to lesser charges including speeding and aggravated assault.<\/p>\n

Under cross-examination on Wednesday, with some of his alleged victims present in court, Hoiby dismissed prosecutor claims he had non-consensual sex with a sleeping or unconscious women.<\/p>\n

The focus of his first day of evidence was an evening in an Oslo cocktail bar and an alcohol- and drug-fuelled after-party at the royal estate on December 20th, 2018.<\/p>\n

H\u00f8iby claimed he took cocaine for the first time that evening, and had been a drug user ever since as a coping mechanism.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been pursued by the press since I was three years old, very few people can imagine what my life is like,\u201d he told Oslo district court. \u201cIn Norway I was known only as Mama\u2019s son and had a great need for confirmation. That expressed itself in sex, alcohol and so on.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the court heard testimony from a woman that she met H\u00f8iby at the Oslo cocktail bar before he took her to the royal estate where she had sex with him before experiencing a blackout in a party cellar.<\/p>\n

In his testimony, H\u00f8iby confirmed meeting the woman in the cocktail bar, where he remembered her \u201cflirting with everything walking around\u201d \u2013 including with him.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Norway\u2019s princess and elite engulfed by Epstein scandalOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

As soon as she approached him, as if to kiss, H\u00f8iby said he heard a camera shutter and claimed the woman received \u20ac4,400 from a leading Norwegian gossip magazine for the picture. <\/p>\n

Back at the Skaugum, the royal estate outside Oslo, H\u00f8iby said he could not remember having sex with the woman in a toilet.<\/p>\n

Later he said they had \u201ccompletely normal sex, as far as I can remember\u201d, then told her to leave in a taxi.<\/p>\n

He said he could not remember taking intimate photos and videos, shown to the court on Tuesday in closed session. Asked about the photos found on his phone, H\u00f8iby denied they depicted sex without consent and insisted he never shared them.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I thought I had material that showed an assault then I would never have kept that material,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Pressed by state prosecutor Sturla Henriksb\u00f8 whether the woman in the videos was awake when he had sex with her, H\u00f8iby said: \u201cI don\u2019t sleep with women who aren\u2019t awake.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"InvestigativeInvestigative leader Andreas Kruszewski (left) and state prosecutor Sturla Henriksbo arrive before the second day of the trial at Oslo’s courthouse on Wednesday. Photograph: Ole Berg-Rusten\/NTB\/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

Later H\u00f8iby confirmed he put the photos in a special folder on his phone, saying: \u201cIf I want to show Mama holiday photos, or a buddy my motorbike, I don\u2019t want to have to scroll through a bunch of sex photos.\u201d<\/p>\n

He confirmed that his mother and stepfather, crown prince Haakon, were home the night of December 20th, 2018, after-party in what he described as a \u201csoundproofed cellar\u201d.<\/p>\n

He dismissed as untrue claims his mother, crown princess Mette-Marit, removed his phone\u2019s SIM card and smashed the device before it could be seized by police during his arrest in August.<\/p>\n

Instead, hearing the police were on their way, H\u00f8iby told the court he found an old phone with no SIM card and a smashed screen and gave that to them instead.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people behind me here,\u201d he said, gesturing at the press gallery, \u201cclaim Mama took my phone but she was washing dishes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marius Borg H\u00f8iby, son of Norway\u2019s crown princess, confessed on Wednesday that he has spent much of his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272063,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,298,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-281324","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-norway","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}